Fish-Hawk.Net

I have been using peacock herl for the body of a woolly bugger and when I tried it out at a river, the peacock herl got all messed up after 2 bass. Can someone tell me how to make peacock herl stronger?

Try twisting a few strands together and the wrap the resulting "rope".

HTH,
Doug

Sporstman,

You can also counter rib it with wire or 3x tippet.

As Beachburger suggested you can twist several strands together, but twist them together around your tying thread (similar to dubbing) and them wrap them onto the hook shank.

Woolly Bugger

Getting tired of peacock herl coming apart even when lashed with wire I started doing this.

I took some Antron or any other shiny, coarse man made fibre...anything that dosen't mix very well. You can experiment with colours but starting with green, black and brown fibres I loosly mixed them and voila! It had the same peacock herl irridescence, reflecting different colours but was almost indestructible. I use it on Coachmans, buggers etc.. It caught fish just as well. One of my favourite summer trout flies is a Brown Hackle Peacock tied dry fly style on a #14,16 hook. I caught more fish because it floated better and held together.

The important thing is don't use real fur because the colours will blend and look like mud. You want the dubbing to be shiny, coarse and light reflecting. You can also use peacock crystal chenille on larger flies. Its not a bad substitute and is durable.

I have never had any problems with peacock herl unraveling on flies...unless they have caught many fish It is important to keep the windings tight and make sure that they are locked in with several winding of thread.

Another trick you could employ, is when you catch the end of the herl with the thread after you have finished winding it forward, take 4 or 5 turns of thread then pull the herl backwards and catch them again with 2 or 3 turns and then cut the extra herl away and put in a half hitch. Basically double locking in the herl. You can do this with many types of material to add durability to your flies. Especially useful with flies for toothy fish.

Woolly Bugger